"It's all about the work."

Few industries place as much store in creativity as advertising. Award schemes abound with large agency networks dominating award shows like Cannes where entry fees are typically too high for the small, independent agencies that are more common. The award rankings are used to evaluate industry standards - major award schemes themselves are ranked by the number of 'gongs' they serve, (how well they are judged as judged by prominent winners). Leaders in the industry synthesise it all down to the simple, prosaic thought - 'it's all about the work'.

As long as that introspective idea persists the advertising industry will maintain a long, slow descent into oblivion. It's not about the work at all and it never has been. Much in the same way that Theodore Levitt talked bout the reasons why people buy that simple, essential hardware item - the drill. They don't want a drill - not matter how elegant its helix or how alluring its glistening diamond tip…the only reason a person would part with money for a drill bit is if they want a hole.

This isn't a point of view that endears me to advertising people whose careers have been premised on making virtuoso ads. Don't get me wrong. I love a beautifully crafted ad; much in the same way that I enjoy a good joke or quality $2 Tacos from a food truck. They delight when you encounter them - and they satisfy an itch but they are disposable moments designed to interrupt or attract my attention in order to either gauge my receptivity to a brand's message and to initiate some meaning change in my behaviour to our mutual advantage. Smart product managers know this. If they could engage with me without an ad and for free - assuming it results in the meaningful mutual change in in behaviour - they would be quite happy not to create an ad. They are hit and miss affairs at the best of times - and everybody knows it.

So, what could be a new business model for the advertising industry to produce better results for brands and the consumers they serve?

In the mid 90's I returned to returned to New Zealand from Europe with a bee in bonnet about brands. When I left it was ads that fixated me. Like most advertising people I was fixated by advertising executions - the expressions of ideas - rather than the idea itself. I formed a partnership with a two colleagues and we determined to set about changing the way that brands managed their relationships with marketing communications vendors like design firms and advertising agencies. I'd been exposed to the way that Disney managed their movie brands like The Lion King - in particular with merchandising partnerships. I was impressed by the detailed manuals and guides that helped ensure the fast food chain I was working for were able to innovate via my ad agency in a way that preserved and amplified the investment they had made in their property. The experience stuck with me and, when we launched BrandWorld onto the unsuspecting world my experience - and that of my partner in creating on air brand identities for international television channels, informed the product we created. In essence it was a system for creating the world for a brand where a variety of vendors made contributions to the project. We began with the articulation of the brand story (we even registered the term BrandStory). It was a terrific idea - but it failed to gain any real traction. New Zealand was the wrong market - too small, too D.I.Y. and too many entrenched partisan relationships between agencies and design firms. Our timing was also a few beats off, the commercial internet was still novel and the kind of development infrastructure needed didn't exist and we didn't know we needed it. The concept was retired (it bombed - read my essay about survivor bias) and out of need we began to tout for business, pitching against ad agencies for accounts where we could.

Many Brands Not Much Money

The by-product of our failure and the urgent need to generate revenue was the development of Family Health Diary, a platform for many products and brands with small budgets. We had the initial support of Warner Lambert/Parke-Davis whose portfolio of brands was substantial -though many had budgets that were either too small to make an impact or the cost of developing activity consumed the funds and left nothing for media. Remember - this is the mid 90s. Social media is still a ways off. By consolidating many small budgets we were able to create a platform for products to share their stories. We had some early 'red-herring' approaches. The very first iteration tried to adapt or adopt the principles of bumpers and promos for news channels. Strongly graphic but weak in connecting with people and their issues (like ageing skin or hemmorrhoids). The theme music was good though and is still used today - nearly 20 years later.

The brand evolved over the years in both its on-screen presentation and format and in its acceptance by the pharmaceutical and medical industries. Initially the strong support from one large firm meant other pharma companies were reluctant to participate. We persevered though and today the Family Health Diary platform is used at one time or another by pretty much every advertiser in the health category, with a few hold-outs.

It was never about 'the work'.

Of all the benefits of participating in a campaign using the Family Health Diary platform one that was obviously absent was the promise of winning an advertising industry creative award was never one of them. But let's break down some of the aspects of the brand that made it successful and converted into a model for syndicated participation in what I call media events.

No one ever got fired for choosing Family Health Diary.The efficacy of Family Health Diary is backed up by nearly 20 years of data. The combination of a proven process that is well known and trusted by consumers means brands and product managers can take risk out of the equation. It is an equation - if you have a restricted budget and short time-frame to deliver a result you can choose a novel, untested approach that might disappear without denting the consciousness of the audience (Let's accept that most products really don't have radically different benefits - or they would be fighting off the customers clamouring hundreds deep at the gates).

No competitive pitches.In my opinion competitive pitches are the bane of the advertising industry. They are a substitute for agency brands having no real point of difference. It might be more accurate to say that their claims to fame - award winning brilliance - is problematic when the talent is mobile - all the top creative people in a relatively small talent pool have worked at one or other of their competitors. There's no secret sauce and lots of conventional approaches.Pitches are expensive and wasteful. Most advertising, communications and design firms labour under the yoke of avoiding 'conflict of interest'. Put simply they can only engage with on brand in a category. The famous exception was the big Japanese ad agency Dentsu who were so dominant in the industry in that country most of the major brands wanted to work with them. They were adept at creating Chinese walls between the brands, preserving their secrets. That was one of the keys that allowed BrandWorld to work with almost every brand - because they only operated at a tactical level. They were privvy to the information needed for the job - not the strategic plans of the client company.

Network redundancy With many clients and a limited supply the firm was in a position to negotiate fair terms and quick decision making. Owning the platform - having a monopoly on access to the brand meant that if one client was unable to commit - they would be replaced by a competitor.